A developer’s day in life

I have meet and worked with few developers. I have always found it common theme that they are always better at there task and programming however struggle with time management, project management and client understanding. Everyone is not in this category, its a mix and a match. Let me list out few example of true stories you may be able to relate.

Stories of developer struggles:

Important and urgent emails are not replied for 2 days, especially when the email is from Exec/Director who is asking for some status directly to the developer (When its a flat structure).

The Client has requested for apples and he gets apples tasting like oranges. Most common reason miss understanding of requirement

The projects completes on time but gets over budget, due to number of hours spend by developers.

Or the worst of them all not communicating back to the team when the task is done and there are half a dozen people who are eagerly waiting for it.

so on…

Before even going further and giving my 2 cents blanket advice to budding developers. Here is the principles on which it has been derived. As a developer you much be aware why principles and patterns works out best and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel again. This is a 4 quadrant principle from the book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.

As such the above image is self explanatory short detail about this is given here

Quadrant 1 is what you must be doing already, because your boss or client is keeping a watch on it. Quadrant 2, honestly if you are struggling as programmer or developer. You don’t bother its not on your books at all or only occasional thought. However remember this is most important quadrant for your career. The time we are saving will be invested in here.

Lets talk about Quadrant 3, mostly likely this will be your major time consuming activity. Some ones else priority, meeting that you need not attend, overthinking and over-designing a simple programming problem, creating generic frameworks in tight deadline and so on.

And your most common friend, Quadrant 4. Checking social media feeds again and again and again. Long coffee breaks and charts, playing games on your smart phone. Checking stock price every minute, Checking on news of countries you don’t belong. Have you ever thought of switching your phone for an hour and working on a programming task. Think about it.

Now that you have got a glimpse about possible struggle and resolving principles. Lets plan a day for you. Its cannot be repeated each day however it will work like a framework to bring yourself in track. Reminder I am not Nostradamus and I don’t have a crystal ball. Use your common sense!

The framework for your EPIC day:

Your day starts at 5 minutes on previous night before you sleep. You know what are the big deadlines of your project. You pick 1 big task for a day, which will take around 90 to 120 minutes to finish. You also pick 2 small task which takes 30 minutes each. So you know your must complete task for the following day.

Good morning! You don’t start with your day with your emails (No-Email). You pick your first task and complete it on the basis which you decided on the previous night. If you are scared of not checking your email first thing in the morning then come 2 hours early then your regular time. So to begin with you check your email as you used to check on your normal day.

Once your big task is done you will already feel more accomplished for your day and you will find you are in control.

You move on to your next 2 task once the first task is complete and the only other activity you can do to bend this rule is quadrant 1 task which is like Server crashed, Application down or fire in the building.

Till you complete all 3 task for the day you will not take up any quadrant 3 task. If some one ask for help or your boss interrupts. Ask politely if you can do that post lunch, since you are middle of a billable task and in a zone. Most sane bosses will understand.

Once you are done will all 3 task hope fully by your first half. Check your email before you take a lunch break. Reply to all the emails which will take less than 2 minutes. There are few example listed here. This tip form the book “Getting Things Done the art of stress free productivity” by David Allen

So you had your lunch and you completed your BIG 3. Already feeling like ready to go home. Note: You have not spent an single minute on Quadrant 4 activity also being able to not do it for rest of your day. Being professional and giving your employer a bang for the buck.

Now is the time for finishing your Quadrant 3 activity. Ideally in a time slot of 60 minutes each. Don’t take more than 2 task mentioning you are already working on some things else. which is already in your plate. Again use common sense in case of crisis and any quadrant one task.

You need to take 10 mins of your planning this will help you if you are on course with your 3 months deliverable, your monthly deliverable, weekly deliverable and all your communications and dependencies.

Planning: So I would recommend you to split it like 1st and 15th of the month check your Monthly deliverable. However 1st of every 3rd month check your 3 months deliverable. Every Friday check your weekly deliverable. Rest of the days check your daily goals. If you have time left check all the gaps of your communications. Like of you are waiting for some decisions or task. send a reminder. If you have completed a task send a notification. This time should be only for planning what to do. So the actual sending of email will be coming next. This time slot is only for brain work. Make good decisions here or I like to say thinking time.

Now you again go back to your email to reply to all the long emails that you will have to read and reply and planned communication you did in previous step. Remember on a good non crisis day you would have spent only 10 minutes of your time on email before you reach at this 3rd email checking event. You keep a slot of 20 minutes to reply all Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 email. The main is quadrant 2 email especially relationship building with your clients and boss.

For those you cannot reply answer them back you will reply them by tomorrow end of the day. Then you pick them up same time tomorrow in your 30 minute slot.

The most fun time slot of your day begins, You will divide it into 2 slot, the First named as AutoBot and the second as MyWisdom each one about 45 minutes.

AutoBot: This will be a time where you will add automation to your developer life. You will think of ways which you will do your task faster. Few example: Increase your programming speed by adding auto complete code snippet or some command script to automate your build, unit test and dev-deployment process. We are just following Do not repeat principles in our process. The out come of this time should be towards your long term goals, Should be able to used by your organization or your future team.

MyWisdom: You should spend this 45 minutes for learning some thing new. Ideally by practicing it in a code base or setting up the tool in your computer. If possible avoid consuming articles or video during this time but actually getting hands dirty and making mistakes while learning new stuff. Asking important questions which you don’r know and then learning new things.

If you count till now you will add up to 7 hours. the remaining 1 hour will be taken up by a 30 min status meeting, stand-up or some other meetings. The remaining 30 minutes will be taken up by context switching. Also quadrant 1 task can come up any time.

Happy programming!

1 ) Scenarios for common anti patterns

2 ) Puzzle to choose which is right and wrong when you have to choose between two task